Falls Church

After a few forays into the general vicinity of where she'd left the Outcasts, Ellen became gloomily convinced that Arlington was completely inaccessible. Every turn she took, every path she followed, seemed to end in a pile of rubble too high for her to climb. She sat down on a lump of concrete and glared at her Pip-Boy map for a while, its location marker blinking blithely without regard for ease or human weakness.

It occurred to her after a while that there had been the tattered remains of a map of the Metro system in that station she'd gone through to reach the Outcasts. Hadn't one of the stations been labeled Arlington? Maybe she could still find her way to the city down there- or at least get close enough to surface on the other side of the piles of rubble. Better than nothing, anyway, and hopefully there wouldn't be any more of those mad, half-rotten Ghouls...

She rummaged in her pack for a bit and found a bottle of Nuka-Cola. One last good drink before heading down there, and she'd be on her way.

---

The problem with the Metro approach was that while there had, indeed, been a map, the vast majority of the tunnels were so far from any trace of exterior light that Ellen might as well have been spelunking. Oh, sure, her Pip-Boy light helped, but it also drew the mad ghouls to her- more of them than she would've credited with surviving all this time. They went down easily enough with a few blows from General Jingwei's sword, but that horrible gurgling noise they made as they ran rattled Ellen's nerves and made her miss what few signs and landmarks remained.

After a certain point she had to admit that she'd taken a wrong turn. There was no way she was going to emerge at Arlington, wherever she was now. She tried to wipe her forehead on her arm, but only heard the click of her armor's sleeve against the gold faceplate. Well, at least there seemed to be light up ahead. Maybe she could emerge for a bit there and get her bearings.

The tunnel, to her surprise, did not open out into a metro station. Instead it fed straight up a long, wide slope to the surface directly. Outside a number of train cars- rusted, decrepit old hulks- blocked the tracks. The light she'd seen was coming from overhead, streaming down through the corroded girders that were all that remained where once there had been a vaulted, arching roof. She allowed herself a sigh of relief; even if she wasn't in Arlington, she was at least somewhere! Why, if she wasn't too mistaken, she thought she could make out the red and white of an old Nuka-Cola machine-

A crack! of metal into stone was all the warning she had. With a yelp, Ellen dove forward, activating the suit's stealth field. Seconds later she caught sight of her would-be assailant: another mutant- and it wasn't alone, either. There were at least three or four lumbering among the cars. She bit back a curse and sheathed Jingwei's sword. For this, she was going to need the Gauss rifle. It was already loaded and ready, so she brought the scope to her eye, waited...

No doubt the original sniper whose suit it was would've been proud of her shot. The mutant went down in a spray of gore as a single round tore its head apart.

Ellen ran for the shelter of another train car, all too aware from the simulation that her stealth field meant nothing once a sufficiently determined foe realized where her shots were coming from. The next mutant didn't go down so easily. Whether because of his helmet or a thicker skull, he took two shots to drop- two shots with a horrifyingly long pause between them, as the gun took some time to recharge. By the time she trained her sights on the third mutant, she realized she wasn't their primary target. Several of them weren't even looking in her direction. She lowered her gun and glanced up towards the green-skinned monstrosities' direction of interest.

Oh, great. People in power armor. Probably more of those Outcast jerks, even if their armor was the wrong color. Well, it didn't matter. The mutants were only mostly firing on the armored figures, and some of them were outright coming her way. She set her jaw grimly and raised the rifle again.

It was over in a few minutes. While the mutants among the train cars fell quickly, when Ellen made her way to the far side of the tracks, the armored figures had engaged several other mutants in combat in an open plaza just beyond. As little as she liked the Outcasts, Ellen couldn't just let them get murdered by the mutants (especially not with the mutants' howls of "I'M GOING TO EAT YOUR BRAIN!" and "SCREAM! SCREAM FOR YOUR WORTHLESS LIFE!" ringing in her ears). She sighed and crept into the plaza, taking such shots as she could manage without endangering the armored humans. Far too many such shots for her liking, mind. The mutants outnumbered the humans by a good two or three to one, even with the humans' armor and miniguns- and flamethrowers, one of them had a flamer- to close the gap.

Eventually, though, the last of the mutants did fall. Ellen remembered to pull her headpiece off before rubbing at her face this time. The suit's stealth field collapsed as she did, prompting surprised exclamations from the armored figures. One, the one holding the flamethrower, jogged over to her. "Stranger, I thank you for your aid," he said, his voice amplified a little by his helmet's concealed speakers. "We must press forward. If you're willing to aid us, you're welcome to join us."

Well. That was a change of pace. Maybe not all the Outcasts had such-

Wait. All the Outcasts she'd seen had marked the shoulders of their power armor with a longsword point-down across a single gear. This man's shoulders had a sword point-up across three interlocking gears, and a pair of wings arranged with one wing on either side of the sword. Maybe they weren't the same group after all. "What's going on?" Ellen said hesitantly.

"We were performing a training exercise with one of our Initiates when we were cut off by the supermutants," the man said. "We saw him flee into a building up ahead during the attack, but before we could link up with him, we were pushed back. Now that we've cleared this area, we can press forward and attempt to rescue him. I only pray that he's unharmed."

The fact that he was explaining things to her at all, in any kind of detail, was automatically a step up in Ellen's eyes. She nodded. "I see," she said. "How likely is he to be alive?"

"He's had enough training that he should know that when facing overwhelming odds, a Brother's best recourse is to wait for reinforcements." The man's armor jingled softly as he shrugged his shoulders. "I suspect he's making a stand in there, but an Initiate won't be able to stand for long against all those Mutants."

Not Outcasts, then, but Brotherhood of Steel- for whatever that meant. Ellen only knew the Brotherhood from what little the Outcasts had said of them. On the other hand, anyone the Outcasts thought so little of probably had something going for them... not to mention that she heard real concern in this man's voice, and he was trying to save a life, not scrabble for machinery. "All right," she said. "I can help, I think."

The man nodded. "How much time do you have left on your Stealth Boy?" he asked.

"It's not a Stealth Boy field," Ellen said. "The armor does that on its own when it's engaged. There doesn't seem to be a time limit."

"Excellent. in that case, we're going to advance forward slowly until we make contact with any remaining mutants. Then we're going to clear the area in front of the building. Once that space is under our control, we'll hold position while you enter and locate Pek. Evac him if you can, but come and bring us in if you're too badly outnumbered in there. You can't save anyone if you wind up dead."

There was no rancor to his tone, for all the bluntness of his words. That may have been what tipped the scaled. Ellen nodded. "All right," she said, and checked the Gauss rifle one more time. "I think I'm ready. One question, though."

"What?"

"Who am I talking to?"

"I'm Paladin Hoss, of the Brotherhood of Steel. This is Paladin Rand. Who're you?"

"Ellen Park, from Vault 101," says Ellen. "Let's go get your man."

"Okay then."

The building Hoss was headed for lay on the far side of a frail but mostly stable bridge. The open area in front of the building had been claimed by mutants- three of them, so far as Ellen could tell- and stacked with as many wrecked pre-war cars as the creatures could manage. Ellen knew what that meant all too well: even the slightest mistake with the rifle would set off a nuclear explosion. She silently thanked Annabelle for her scoped weapon lessons, and YT for making her learn to steady her hand so that lessons would go more smoothly, and took aim. Between her and Rand, two mutants fell almost immediately. The third, for whatever reason, forsook the shelter of the cars in favor of charging Hoss with a massive sledgehammer. "WHY YOU STUPID HUMANS ALWAYS FIGHT?" it roared.

Hoss's answer was to open the valve on his flamethrower.

When the scorched, still-burning remains of the mutant hit the ground, Hoss nodded to Ellen. "He's up ahead, in that building," he said. "Don't stop. We'll hold our ground out here as long as we can."

Ellen nodded and slipped the building's door open as quietly as she could.

The light inside was mostly from crude, simple sources: trash bins full of burning debris, broken-off bits of luminescent toys or signs, and the like. The shadows flickered and moved, which suited Ellen just fine. Her stealth field only went so far, after all. The more the light was already moving, the less likely the mutants would be to notice one more patch of not-quite-rightness... and there were mutants, to be sure. They'd punched hole after hole after hole through the interior walls of the building rather than bother with doors. She managed to count four or five before losing track. Almost Ellen turned around to go and fetch Hoss, but it occurred to her that she hadn't located the initiate yet. If the man was already dead, there was no reason to make Hoss and his fellow paladin risk his life. Suppressing a shiver, she crept onward.

Eventually she came across a narrow, cramped hallway that showed few signs of recent use. If the mutants were in this part of the building, they weren't anywhere to be seen. There were no holes in the walls here, either. It seemed like the sort of place where a human might conceivably try to take shelter, and so she began easing doors open fractionally and peering inside. The first led only to the remains of a bathroom, and the second to a storage closet, but the third paid off. There was a sharp, frightened intake of air as Ellen eased the door open. A moment later it turned into a sigh of relief as she turned the stealth field off. "Thank God someone's come!" said the room's lone occupant: a startlingly young red-headed man, perhaps Ellen's age or a little older, wearing ordinary green-gray combat armor. "You have to help me, please!"

"It's all right," Ellen said, pulling the headpiece off. "That's what I'm here for, sir."

"Oh, thank God." The young man swallowed, but managed a smile. "Paladin Hoss sent you, didn't he? I knew he wouldn't leave me behind. When they attacked, we were cut off so quickly- my gun jammed and I never even got a shot off. The only thing I could do was hide."

It made enough sense. Ellen would've done the same thing in his shoes. Still, the jamming didn't sit well with her. "Can I take a look at your gun?" she asked, refraining from adding shouldn't you have known how to deal with that?. He was in a bad situation, after all.

"Sure, I guess-" Pek turned and retrieved an ordinary-looking hunting rifle from where he'd been crouched. As he handed it to Ellen he asked, "Can you fix it?"

"Maybe..." Ellen considered the weapon thoughtfully. Ah. That looked about right. "Okay, see this? Pull this part here back to clear the chamber."

Pek stared, blinking. "Wow," he said, "that's... that's easy." There was a pause as an embarrassed look crept across his face. Ellen had the grace to look away. "Now at least I can shoot back at those mutant bastards..."

Ellen nodded. "We'd better get moving," she said. "The building's still crawling with them. Hoss and Rand are waiting outside. Are you ready?"

Pek nodded. "Let's go," he said.

They slipped away, Ellen moving as quietly as she could. Pek's gun was in no condition to take on more mutants just yet, and she wasn't sure that her shotgun would do him any good in his current state. Pek at least showed some degree of sense, keeping to the shadows and refusing to move until any mutants were looking someplace else or gone entirely. It made for an agonizing pace, but eventually the both of them reached the front door alive and unharmed. Ellen pushed it open far enough for Pek, then ducked out herself.

Hoss and Rand had been busy, by the look of things. There were at least two more mutant corpses outside, and Hoss's armor looked rather the worse for wear. He nodded as Ellen deactivated the stealth field and approached. "Excellent," he said. "The Initiate is safely returned to us. You have the thanks of the Brotherhood, my friend. We cannot offer you much in return, but know that you may travel through Falls Church under our protection."

It was better than nothing- and frankly, Ellen felt it meant more than the grudgingly given gifts of the Outcasts. She nodded. "Thank you, Paladin," she said. "I appreciate it. Can you show me the way to Arlington from here?"

"Certainly," said Hoss. "Do you mind if I ask what you're doing there?"

"I'm trying to find the remains of the Arlington Public Library. It's for a book about the Wasteland."

"Huh." Hoss chuckled quietly. "And here I thought we were the only ones taking that kind of initiative. All right. Bring that Pip-Boy of yours over here and I'll mark it out on the map on one condition."

"What condition?" said Ellen warily.

"That you give my regards to Scribe Yearling when you see her."